MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The FDX Master Executive Council
(MEC) of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Int’l is encouraged by the
National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) publication of its Most Wanted
List for 2013. This list represents the top ten advocacy priorities for the
NTSB. It is designed to increase awareness of, and support for, the most
critical changes needed to reduce transportation accidents and save lives.

Included in this year’s list are fire and smoke
incidents. Fire and smoke incidents constitute a daily concern and threat to
commercial airline pilots, and in particular, commercial airline pilots who
operate cargo aircraft. As was evidenced by the fatal UPS 747 accident in Dubai
on September 6, 2010, in-flight fires and/or smoke incidents are very difficult
to manage as they can develop and expand in a relatively short time frame. The
NTSB’s inclusion of this item recognizes the need for enhanced prevention
measures designed to eliminate fire and smoke incidents in addition to
improvement of training and procedures for crews who experience such an event.
“The FDX MEC and ALPA have worked hard on these issues for a number of years. We
are hopeful that the NTSB’s inclusion of this issue will bring wider attention
to this very serious issue,” commented Captain Scott Stratton, FDX MEC Chairman.

Conversely, the FDX MEC was disappointed by the
removal of fatigue from the NTSB’s Most Wanted List for 2013. While fatigue has
received more attention recently due to the Federal Aviation Administration’s
(FAA) introduction of FAR Part 117, that effort completely ignored the
conditions at United States’ cargo carriers. “Fatigue was not fixed by Part 117.
Progress was made for many pilots, but an entire segment of the industry,
ironically the segment of the industry known to fly in the most fatiguing
environment – between midnight and 6:00 a.m., was completely left out of the
fix. That’s thousands of pilots flying the nation’s cargo every night of the
year. If anything, the failure to include all commercial pilots in Part 117
demonstrates that we are still not close to understanding the dangers that
fatigue poses to everyone in or outside of the aircraft,” said Captain Stratton.
“The fight to expand fatigue protections continues with legislative efforts like
The Safe Skies Act of 2012 as represented in the House of Representatives as
H.R. 4350 and in the Senate as S. 3263, but the NTSB should have maintained
fatigue as a top ten risk with so many pilots excluded from Part 117.”

Founded in 1931, ALPA is the world’s largest
pilots union, representing more than 51,000 pilots at 35 airlines in the United
States and Canada. Visit the ALPA website at
www.alpa.org.